Apple has essentially come from nowhere to become one of the world's biggest -- and undoubtedly best known -- consumer electronics companies. But the company has attracted a lot of criticism for making devices that are difficult to repair, and complicated to recycle.

One of Apple's most vocal critics is repair specialists iFixit, who have been taking apart and examining products since 2006. The company has disassembled hundreds of products and knows what It is talking about.

So, what does Apple do that makes Apple products hard to repair? Let's take a look.

I'm old-school enough to remember when devices were held together with screws -- or even nuts and bolts! But Apple doesn't like fasteners because they ruin the lines of products, and make it far too easy to get inside a device.

With that in mind, a great many of Apple's current product lineup -- including the iPhone 5, iPad 4, and iPad mini -- make extensive use of adhesive to hold components in place. Adhesive is used enthusiastically to hold in place screens, batteries, cabling, and even components.

Using adhesive to hold in place consumables such as batteries makes repairs tricky, Prying the battery free from the adhesive can damage components, and even puncture the battery.

Apple doesn't just miniaturize devices, it likes to miniaturize fasteners. The iPad mini is held together using some of the smallest screws seen by iFixit. The image above shows a screw from the bottom on an iPhone 5 on the right, and one from inside the iPad mini on the left.

Most notebooks -- even ones that make use of new solid-state drives (SSDs) -- are capable of being easily upgraded by the user when they require more storage. This is not the case with Apple's new MacBook Pro, which uses a proprietary drive.

Another trick in Apple's arsenal is to fuse the display into a single unit that's virtually impossible to repair. If anything inside the display breaks, the whole unit has to be replaced. This makes repairs that would otherwise be cheap and straightforward very expensive.

Using cable connectors inside devices takes up space, so Apple has increasingly turned to soldering ribbon cables to the logic board. Here, the Lightning port ribbon from an iPad mini is soldered onto the logic board. This means that if the connector is ever damaged, the whole board has to be replaced -- making the repair unnecessarily costly.

How Apple makes products difficult -- and expensive -- to repair

Gallery: In recent years, Apple has attracted a lot of criticism for making devices that are difficult to repair, and complicated to recycle. Let's take a look at why.

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Proprietary components

Most notebooks -- even ones that make use of new solid-state drives (SSDs) -- are capable of being easily upgraded by the user when they require more storage. This is not the case with Apple's new MacBook Pro, which uses a proprietary drive.